vaccimes: irreflexive contrasted to reflexive (was: RE: virus: Biochem, sorta)

zaimoni@ksu.edu
Sun, 22 Sep 1996 23:35:59 -0500 (CDT)


On Sun, 22 Sep 1996 noctem@centuryinter.net wrote:

[CLIP!]

> P.S.: A solipsist could make a decent case that religious experiences
> aren't the only thing that we hallucinate.... :b
> "Hallucination" in fact, seems to be used frequently as a
> definition/vaccime, especially when the word "consensual" is prefixed to it
> -- it invalidates the ramifications of _any_ type of perception by defining
> the perceptive mechanism as (temporarily?) flawed.

> [CLIP!]

I've had time to do a first-order analysis. I suspect I'm stating the
amazingly obvious.

Try viewing a vaccime as a heuristic that refutes memes that do not
belong to its memetic complex. In common language, why the used-car
salesperson can't sell you the Ultimate Junker in five minutes. [The
1972 Vega comes to mind. ARE there any still being driven? They were
infamous for rusting in the showroom.]

Here, I want to view memes [including vaccimes] as metadefinitions. In
particular, let's call a vaccime Z globally inconsistent if a personal
application of Z vs. another (possibly itself) instance of Z always
works. If a vaccime is not globally inconsistent, we say it is locally
consistent.

For instance, "tolerance" is superficially locally consistent.
Tolerating your own views will not prevent you from believing them.
[Well...MAYBE this doesn't work for Zen masters.]

In contrast, "hallucination" is superficially globally inconsistent. "I
am hallucinating that he is hallucinating" will immediately destroy the
target vaccime [the one after "that"].

The Descartes paradox may be viewed as an attempt to find something that
the "hallucination" vaccime WON'T work on when self-applied. Whether he
got it right is another question.

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/ Kenneth Boyd
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